Idle Hands Gabriel Spera
We're shoveling the sheetrock, bricks, and planks
the builders couldn't use into a pocked
and rusted pickup, settling in the clay
outside the condos springing up around
what will be cul-de-sacs, when all at once we see this snake come trickling through the gutter, licking slackly over tire treads sunk
from lumbering machines, and one of our
small crew, career odd-jobber, Keith, jumps up,
runs over, plants his steel-toed shoes, and hoists
his shovel, set to hack its head clean off-
but not yet, not before he watches it
recoil from where his shadow falls, almost
not smiling his first smile all day, and from
somebody else's mouth it seems I hear
my voice say, "Wait, it's just a garter snake,
it's harmless, just forget it, let it go."
And so he turns to me, his face the face
of someone stopped from beating something
he clearly feels he owns, he turns and says,
"S'that so? Well now, if you're so sure
go pick it up. Go 'head, right now."
I can't begin to guess how many snakes I held
when I was younger, treadmilling my hands
beneath their waterfalling bodies, but
a lot. Time was, I'd prowl through sagging barns
looking for them, and knew the bleached fiat stones
where they'd be scrawled out, knew exactly where
to grab to keep that trap of fishhook teeth
from clamping on my thumb, yet now I can't
be sure of anything, except how bad
Keith wants it dead, and not because he thinks
it's poisonous. Snakes I know, but hate
like Keith's is hard to figure. So I keep
my peace until he jabs, "Time's up," and watch
him work his shovel like a butter churn,
catching, scritching, shredding the luckless thing
in bows and ribbons into dirt.
Gabriel Spera
We're shoveling the sheetrock, bricks, and planks
the builders couldn't use into a pocked
and rusted pickup, settling in the clay
outside the condos springing up around
what will be cul-de-sacs, when all at once
we see this snake come trickling through the gutter,
licking slackly over tire treads sunk
from lumbering machines, and one of our
small crew, career odd-jobber, Keith, jumps up,
runs over, plants his steel-toed shoes, and hoists
his shovel, set to hack its head clean off-
but not yet, not before he watches it
recoil from where his shadow falls, almost
not smiling his first smile all day, and from
somebody else's mouth it seems I hear
my voice say, "Wait, it's just a garter snake,
it's harmless, just forget it, let it go."
And so he turns to me, his face the face
of someone stopped from beating something
he clearly feels he owns, he turns and says,
"S'that so? Well now, if you're so sure
go pick it up. Go 'head, right now."
I can't begin to guess how many snakes I held
when I was younger, treadmilling my hands
beneath their waterfalling bodies, but
a lot. Time was, I'd prowl through sagging barns
looking for them, and knew the bleached fiat stones
where they'd be scrawled out, knew exactly where
to grab to keep that trap of fishhook teeth
from clamping on my thumb, yet now I can't
be sure of anything, except how bad
Keith wants it dead, and not because he thinks
it's poisonous. Snakes I know, but hate
like Keith's is hard to figure. So I keep
my peace until he jabs, "Time's up," and watch
him work his shovel like a butter churn,
catching, scritching, shredding the luckless thing
in bows and ribbons into dirt.